My mom gifted me this pothos for Xmas, I’ve watered it maybe 3 times since getting it and it has its own grow light. Ever since then, several huge leaves have turned yellow and developed these spots. I pick them off immediately but it just keeps happening 🙁 pleaseeeee don’t say thrips 😭
by llcooljsuckit
7 Comments
Are you spraying oil on it at all? Like neem, or some kind of leaf shine?
I don’t know if it’s thrips, specifically, but it certainly looks like some type of sucking pest damage. I don’t see the typical black poop spots from thrips, just what looks to be damage from mouth parts.
I’d try to get up close and personal to see if you can see anything. May be spider mites, which are super, super tiny.
Whatever it is, you don’t need to panic. I just got rid of a god-awful spider mite infestation by purchasing a ton of predatory mites. The shipping was costly, but I didn’t have to deal with all the weeks of pain of washing all of my plants and stressing them out. Predatory insects clean out pests so quick and efficiently.
Was it exposed to extreme temps? Often, especially with cold, the perimeter of the leaf will have necrotic spots with hot or cold exposure since that area is less protected.
edit: This also could be senescence from insufficient light exposure. The size of the foliage suggests that it previously had direct sun. Insufficient light will cause it to transport nutrients and photosynthates to new growth and the root system to make up for the low light.
edit: Don’t remove the leaves until they’ve dried to the point that they can be gently plucked. Otherwise, you remove the resource that the plant is trying to get, so it’ll move on to the next leaf instead.
Looks like thrips to me, on the 4th pic little white wormy things, thrips larvae
The black spots make me think of a fungal infection. I’ve had thrips before and I never saw black spotting like that.
I mean… the thrip damage on my monstera looks exactly like this, but it could be another sap sucking insect as someone else mentioned…
Thrips aren’t necessarily a death sentence but it’s a lot of work. I spent the last 3 months thinking I was clear of them, but I just found 10 new larvae on my monstera last night. 😩
I thought thrips made the lovely lines (like this on my 15 year old orchid 😭)
https://preview.redd.it/3tku0t2zd6je1.jpeg?width=3072&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=337a7dc37cc7bdad09c3b84b0ba46b1fa5816c41